Michael's life turned upside down a year and a half ago.
"I would have preferred to plant myself a thousand times, rather than to plant someone ..." Shoulders arched, head bowed forward, as if to hide from glances, the defendant's voice is barely audible when he speaks.
“At night I have nightmares, I don't sleep well.
"And during the day, impossible not to think of this March 27, 2020:" I still pass by this place to go to work ... "
That evening, after an argument with his wife, the 32-year-old man decides to leave his home: he gets in his car and takes a fast lane, the D1016.
Night is falling.
At the wheel, while trying to light a cigarette, he then violently collides with Cyril P., who was walking on the roadside, near the town of Breuil-le-Vert (Oise).
Despite the intervention of the emergency services, Cyril died on the spot, as a result of his injuries.
Arriving on the scene, the gendarmes noted reddish traces on the roadway, found a sneaker, pants and, further on, the body of the victim.
Michael, him, will be found 900 m further on the side, "in a state of shock".
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Tried for manslaughter before the Beauvais court on Thursday, the defendant was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, including six months closed.
A sentence that will be adaptable at home.
The accused was also prohibited from retaking his driving license for eight months and will have to pay nearly 75,000 euros to the relatives of the victim.
"No one could take him home"
Placed in custody after the accident, Michael will test positive for alcohol, with 1.86 g in the blood, or "eight glasses of whiskey".
“You didn't tell yourself that you couldn't drive while drinking so much,” asks the president.
"At the time, I did not think," he replies.
"But that will have serious consequences, sir," resumes the judge.
Heard by the gendarmes, he first explains that he did not see the victim.
Then, in another hearing, will affirm that the man would have crossed the road, his pants down on the knees and that he would not have had time to brake.
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What was the victim doing along that expressway that night?
Released from prison in 2019, after 14 years of detention, Cyril P. lived with a friend in Liancourt.
"But he stayed in his room all the time, as if he was still in prison," relates a relative.
On March 27, he then went to the Clermont emergency room for headaches.
"Except that nobody could take him home, once out of the hospital", reports the witness.
The Oise is then in full containment and public transport is scarce.
Cyril then decides to walk home alone, before being hit head-on by Michael's car.
"We do not come out unscathed on a psychological level, his act comes back to him daily and he arrives in front of you traumatized by what he may have committed", insists his lawyer.
